- 1-2 Players.
- Vibration Function Compatible.
- Analog Control Compatible.
Product description
-------------------
The Future of Blowing $#!% Up is Here! 18 All-New '70's and
Futuristic Vehicles. 8 New Destructible Arenas with Hidden
Power-Ups. Earn Points to Upgrade Your Vehicle. Blast Through
Insane 1-4 Player Action.
.com
----
Vehicular combat game Vigilante 8: Second Offense is a big
improvement in a series that was already the best in the genre.
Fortunately for gamers, the creators have shifted away from
enhanced plot development in favor of setting up the mayhem.
Gamers are quickly immersed into the action in this fast-action
game, which still boasts an excellent quest mode.
New power-ups make this game even more fun to play than its Sony
PlayStation and Nintendo 64 predecessors. This time around,
players can pick up radar jammers that will scramble both enemy
radar and incoming homing projectiles. But the best new features
are the hoverpods and hydrofloaters that will give any car the
ability to hover over land and water, respectively.
Weapons are plentiful and formidable. In addition to standard
stock (missiles, mines, machine s, rockets, flame-throwers,
and so on), each character has their own special weapon that
wreaks havoc when powered up. Among the best is the Garbage Man's
compactor weapon, which can reduce even the toughest competitors
into a nice compact package. New combination moves have also been
added, which add to the overall devastation that can be wreaked
in this glorious high-resolution game. The game is for one or two
players. --Bill Hutchens
Pros:
* Solid control; cars are easy to maneuver
* More satisfying kills with the new combos
* Great diversity in battle environments
Cons:
* Arenas are almost too big and can be confusing
P.when('A').execute(function(A) {
A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse',
function(data) {
window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100);
});
});
Review
------
The console cousin to Activision's Interstate 76 line, the
Vigilante 8 series, focuses on a group of good people who drive
cars tricked out with weapons and fight against a group of bad
people who drive cars tricked out with weapons. That's almost all
the plot description you need, save for that the setting is the
1970s and the game recycles the only things anyone would ever
want to salvage from that era: muscle cars, funk music, Afros,
and sideburns. The second in the series features a
time-travel storyline, which of course necessitates the
introduction of the weapon-laden flying vehicles that everyone's
driving in the future as well as other bits of advanced
technology that allow cars to skim along on ski slopes and water.
As in the last game, you can play either on the good side or the
bad side, each of which has its own mission requirements for each
level, before all the other vehicles must be eliminated. As a
good guy, you might have to gather stolen cash and return it to
its owners, while the baddies have to actually steal it. The
mission objectives are now more elaborate than before, which
should be good but isn't, because they aren't always as clear as
they should be. For instance, on one level, you have to protect a
train and collect several toolboxes. To gather all the toolboxes,
you have to shoot the train, something you'd assume you'd want to
avoid doing to accomplish the other objective. In another level,
you have to launch a rocket, which requires you to blast open a
building, trigger a computer control to move the rocket to the
launch platform, and trigger the control again once the rocket is
in place. You can check over your objectives at any time in the
game, but they offer scant instruction and don't check off once
one has been accomplished. One change in the series that has no
drawback is that you can improve the performance of your car.
Each time you destroy another vehicle, you can collect an icon
that will add a few points to one of several factors (speed,
armor, and so on). If you get a hundred points in any category,
your car's chassis will automatically upgrade. The icons only
appear for about ten seconds, so you'll want to be right on top
of your nents when you take them out, instead of up a
ain firing mortars from a safe distance. You'll probably
encounter this feature first in the quest mode, but it's
available in the arcade mode (in which you pick how many
nents you want and which stage you want to fight in) too,
where you can build up your ride even faster. Another clearly
positive aspect of the game is its music, which is fantastic.
Each song tackles a different genre of '70s music and
incorporates all the cliches without sounding cliche in the end.
Nearly every song is infectious, but unfortunately since rounds
tend to run long in the game, you end up hearing them over and
over again. If only a few more tunes could've been included in
V8SO, the audio side could be considered flawless. Meanwhile, the
graphics look much the same as in the last game, save for more
impressive explosions, a few minor other bits of eye candy, and a
greater variety of environments in the levels. The level design
itself is much improved, with even more interactive elements
(from ski jumps to hungry alligators and sharks in the water) and
hidden areas, and now absolutely everything seems to be
destructible. The main sticky point of V8SO is an aggravated
problem found in the first game. In the original, you'd sometimes
find yourself flying in the air after hitting a ledge just the
right way, and because of the game's loose interpretation of
gravity, you floated back to earth, instead of careening quickly
back down. It happened infrequently enough in the first game so
as not to be a problem, but it happens often when using the
flying car upgrade, and since you're able to access it, that
problem is significantly more frequent. In fact, you'll pretty
much avoid using the flying car upgrade at all because of this
and because it's hard to shoot vehicles on the ground with
anything other than weapons that home in automatically. And
you'll also likely try to skip traveling on the water except to
collect a few power-ups, because the slow response of your boat
car keeps it from being much fun. Beyond these complaints though,
the control in V8SO is pretty tight. The analog control responds
well, and using the hand brake lets you make tighter turns or
throw the car quickly into reverse. As before, the game offers a
great deal of value - you can unlock a host of hidden characters,
and there are two multiplayer options, a two-player cooperative
mode and two-player deathmatches complete with
computer-controlled enemies. Not to skim over the important
multiplayer aspect of the game, but it's as different from the
first game as you'd expect it to be: Positive and negative
aspects of the single-player game are repeated here. In the end,
you just shouldn't have to deal with occasions where you're
wondering what you're supposed to do next or when you're going to
land back on the ground, and these make what could've been a
great game instead simply very good.--Joe Fielder--Copyright ©
1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or
in part in any form or medium without express written permission
of GameSpot is prohibited. -- GameSpot Review
See more ( javascript:void(0) )
